Högskolan i Skövde

One of the main challenges in introducing collaborative robots in industry is trust. A commonality in trust definitions in the areas of automation and robotics is the uncertainty associated with unfamiliar situations, where initial trust is influenced by knowledge and experience. For collaborative robots, many safety functions are not visible to users and therefore require knowledge or experience to understand. Becoming familiar with these functions can help users feel less uncertain and vulnerable when working with or near robots. Virtual reality can provide a safe and realistic environment where users can become familiar with new technology. To address this, we propose developing a virtual reality system that enables users to experience some of the safety functions of a collaborative robot. The system is being built in Unity, and the virtual environment includes a representation of an ABB GoFa robot. Through hands-on interactions, users can experience these safety functions and the robot's corresponding behavior when a safety limit is exceeded by using hand-guiding. These events are reinforced using sensory feedback to enhance the perceivability of the safety functions' limits and the robot's safety-related behaviors. For example, vibration intensity increases as the robot approaches its speed limit. The goal of the developed system is to explore whether virtual exposure to these safety functions can help establish initial trust in collaborative robots before real-world interaction, by increasing knowledge and experience.